Understanding a Modern Marketer’s Plight
Blake Bowyer
Media Program Analyst
One of the constraints of being in marketing: everyone thinks they know, but very few do. Seth Godin recently wrote in his blog that marketing is at its best when treated as both an art and a science. However, I’d expect that not many would consider marketing an art, much less a science. To most, marketing means advertising and advertising means Nike’s “Just Do It” and the Geico gecko – both disgustingly obvious, simple, and hardly worth the millions of dollars they cost.
However, that is the essence of marketing: it is the art of bringing social science to the public. No other discipline so frequently interacts with crowds – from the huddled masses to the small groups of the long tail – to communicate a message. Accounting, engineering, programming, and countless others happen behind the scenes with their own lingos and secret handshakes. Conversely, marketing’s primary objective is to interpret, relate, and measure messages and shake the hand of every person in the target audience (and even a few outside it).
Getting my M.S. in Marketing, this is a plea I make regularly. Even my title here at EyeTraffic Media – Media Program Analyst – isn’t one that spurs top-of-mind awareness from non-marketers. First off, it doesn’t have “marketing” or “communications” anywhere in it! Counterintuitive, right? Not exactly. As mobile, electronic, and other emerging media approach the forefront, marketers are given a stronger set of tools that reach out beyond the creative space. These tools are marketing metrics and they empower smart agencies by combining a stronger sense of ROI and performance with a much-needed level of accountability.
At EyeTraffic, we eat, sleep, and breathe metrics and encourage our clients to do the same. Though, that doesn’t mean we strip out all the fun stuff typically associated with marketing. The slogans, taglines, mascots, and jingles are still here, but we’re leveraging great tactics to make sure great creative doesn’t fall on deaf ears (or blind eyes). So, while it may seem like “marketing metrics” should fall under another department’s lexicon, they’re actually the boon of 21st century marketing agencies; and, most importantly, their clients.
After two weeks of telling people I work at a marketing firm and being asked what I think of the new, hilarious Whopper Jr. TV ads, I answer, “They’re funny, but they’re not positively impacting Burger King’s share of stores, share of sales, or recent sales growth.” The typical reply is, “Yeah, but they’re funny, right?” Yeah, they are funny and, just like marketing, humor is an art. But, marketing’s also a science and humor alone won’t get results. Just ask the Pets.com sock puppet.
